Strengths And Weaknesses Of Behaviorism

Ever heard a certain song that triggers your brain to recall something from the past. Then, you should know that you been conditioned to respond in a certain way when you hear that favorite song you known about for a long time. Throughout human history behaviorism has played a big role in the evolution of psychology. The three main characters that contributed on to the creation of behaviorism were Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner all helping behaviorism evolution into an important idea in psychology . Overall, behaviorism is very common around the world and being everywhere daily in ads or life situations.

Behaviourist approach has may strengths to its findings, there has a been a vast amount of experiments from other theorists that support the theory. However, many weaknesses can be highlighted. One is how using rewards or other means to shape behaviour can be argued that the individual is only motivated for these rewards which can encourage a shallow and materialistic style. Another limitation that can be mentioned is that that behaviourist research was widely carried out on animals, for instance Skinner’s rats, Watson’s cats and Pavlov’s dogs. We cannot compare human behaviour to that of an animal. We cannot be 100% certain that humans would act the same way as the animals experimented on (McLeod,2017). As well as this, another criticism states how even though you can change someone’s behaviour in one environment, what happens when the individual goes to a different environment where positive behaviour isn’t reinforced. O’Brien gives an example of if a teacher changed a challenging child’s behaviour at school but then the child went home to the same environment as before, the child would find it increasingly hard to stick to the changed behaviour (O’Brien 2016). I feel that I can relate to this with a child I have in my class. I have managed through positive reinforcement to change his behaviour that he showed in previous classes, however when communicating with his carer it is noted that his previous behaviour is still present in his home environment.

Behaviorism and humanism are two theories of learning. Both theories are very important, and have many good qualities, which makes it difficult to say that one is better than the other. When it comes to learning, behaviorism does not consider mental processes, rather it looks at our response to stimuli in our environment. Whereas, humanism sees learning as personal, and is dependent on each individual self. Even though the two theories seem completely opposite of each other, there are some similarities between them pertaining to learning.

Behaviorism has its roots as far back as the ancient Greeks. Hippocrates (460-377 BCE), known as the father of medicine, developed humorism consisting of four humors that corresponded with four temperaments. Physicians and philosophers used this model with its four temperaments for many long years.

Behaviorism and social learning theory are examples of two mechanistic theories that focus on explaining children’s behavior. Social learning theory emphasizes observational learning and imitation. On the other hand, behaviorism is rooted in focusing on how the environment impacts development. The environment shapes the child’s development as the child strives to adapt to the environment. Both theories deal with explaining behavior and consist of similarities, but are composed of different elements of explaining behavior.

Learning had been widely discussed among the researchers. It had become the subject matter that interests psychologists, educationists, scientists and came up with a number of learning theories. There are many different theories that attempt to describe the learning process. The theorists came out with some methods and approaches to be applied in the language teaching in the classroom. Approaches consist of specific principles in the language teaching and to apply these approaches, methods are needed which include various procedures and techniques. In this coursework, I would discuss on two theories, methods and approaches, two of their strength and limitations. In addition, I would further discuss on the implementation of one of the theories in the English language classroom.

Behaviorism is the scientific approach to psychology that is distinguished by logical-theoretical emphasis as is seeks to develop reasons for behavior (Moore, 2013). The theory of Behaviorism was developed by John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner. Uniquely, this theory states that personality is plastic and can be shaped by the environment or situational influences. Another difference from previous thoughts is

Behaviourism, also known as the behaviouristic approach is based on several underlying assumptions regarding methodology and behavioural analysis. Behaviourists believe that psychology should be seen as a science and therefore theories must be proved using controlled experiments whilst observing behaviour. Behaviourism is mainly concerned with observable behaviour rather than internal processes such as emotions. The psychodynamic approach to psychology is in complete contrast to that of the behavioural approach. Psychodynamic theorists look for the causes of behaviour in a dynamic interplay of inner motivational forces that often conflict with one another.

Learning is the relatively permanent change in behavior (Burns, 1995), and can come in the form of observable activities and internal processes. Explanations of what happens when these actions occur are known as learning theories. These theories include behaviorist, cognitivist, humanist, social learning and constructivist. In this essay behaviorist and cognitivists will be described, compared and contrasted in order to truly understand their approache.

Traditional behaviorism focused exclusively on the direct observation of objectively measurable events (Wolf, 1978). Due to declining popularity, behaviorists had to rethink their position to remain relevant (Wolf, 1978). They discovered that society typically wanted to learn about concepts and ideas that are more subjective in nature (Wolf, 1978). Behaviorists began to acknowledge the social validity, or the relevance to society, of their research (Wolf, 1978). The population now had a voice in the research of behaviorists which stimulated research into new areas, such as teaching people how best to “relate” to young people (Wolf, 1978, p. 207). Behaviorists emphasize the importance of incorporating the subjective into what had once been an objective sub-division of psychology.

In About Behaviorism, B.F. Skinner expands on methodological behaviorism’s central tenet and its weaknesses. Skinner illustrated that in methodological behaviorism, the only admissible and relevant evidence in scientific psychology is behavioral data. To methodological behaviorists, introspection is not a form of evidence, since it is a private and personal way of knowing. There can be no public agreement on introspection, and thus it cannot be accepted as a scientific

Behaviorism and constructivism are learning theories which stem from two philosophical schools of thought which provide a structured foundation for planning and teaching instructional tasks. Behaviorism is based on observable changes in behavior. Any concept can be learned if it is repeated enough until it becomes automatic. Some key players in the development of the behaviorist theory include Pavlov, Watson, Thorndike and Skinner. Constructivism is based on the premise that we all construct our own perspective of the world, through individual experiences and schema. The major players associated with Constructivist theory include Piaget and Vygotsky. Having knowledge of various learning theories is an essential element in instructional design. Understanding how students learn, coupled with a student 's current level of understanding, is imperative to quality instructional design. Details of both theories will be highlighted in conjunction with exploring a ratio reasoning lesson plan.

The term behaviorism referred to the school of psychology founded by John B. Watson based on the proposition that all things which organisms do — including acting, thinking and feeling—can and should be regarded as behaviors (Staddon, 2001) . And this behavior could be researched scientifically . According to Pavlov, "Respondent Conditioning” resulted from the association of two stimuli, such as causing dogs to salivate at the sound a tuning fork. Consequently, Skinner developed “Operant Conditioning” where the “Stimulus-Response” association was elicited through selective reinforcement (rewards or punishments) to shape behavior. In this regard, behaviorism assumed that a learner was a passive recipient and responding to environmental stimuli. When applying the tenets of Behaviorism to teaching, Skinner asserted that the learner started off as a blank slate, and then his behavior was shaped via positive or negative reinforcement. Behaviorist

Behaviorism is a way to deal with psychology that spotlights on a singular's behavior. It consolidates components of philosophy, technique, and theory. It developed in the mid twentieth century as a response to profundity psychology and other more conventional types of psychology, which regularly experienced issues making predictions that could be tried utilizing thorough experimental methods. Behaviorism is more worried with behavior than with thinking, feeling, or knowing. It concentrates on the goal and discernible parts of behavior. The behaviorist theories all share some variant of jolt reaction components for learning. Behaviorism started with the work of John B. Watson, an American psychologist. Watson held the perspective that psychology ought to just fret about

My psychologist has produced a very accurate analysis of myself. It captured the thing that drives a great deal of my behavior. It influences my actions subconsciously and helps get me be the terrific person that I am today. My assessment shows how generous I am. I give freely of my time and my possessions, and no jobs are too big for me to help with sharing comes naturally for me. My assessment also shows my behavior reveals that I’m a loving individual. I always want the best for people and depart out of my way to do little special things for them by nature I am a giver. I choose behaviorism theory because I’m more intimate with this theory, it’s the most theory that I will have to deal with more when I began the job that I am